Short-rotation crops ‘can be grown sustainably in England’

Planting short-rotation energy crops on England’s unused agricultural land could produce enough biomass to meet renewable energy targets without disrupting the food industry or the environment, according to a study conducted by researchers at Southampton University.

Funded by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), the researchers looked at the potential of planting short-rotation coppice (poplar and willow) in England.

UKERC researcher Gail Taylor, professor of plant biology at Southampton University, said: ’This study shows that bio-energy crops can be grown sustainably in parts of England, with no detrimental impact on food crops.’

The UKERC research states that new technology will enable biofuels to be made from ’lignocellulosic’ crops (such as short-rotation coppice — willow and poplar), which, unlike current ’cellulosic’ crops (typically derived from food crops including wheat and maize), is able to grow on poor-quality agricultural land.

The researchers said that while more than 39 per cent of land in England cannot be planted with short-rotation crops owing to agronomic or legislative restrictions, marginal land (Agricultural Land Classification grades 4 and 5) could realistically produce 7.5 million tons of biomass. This would be enough to generate approximately four per cent of current UK electricity demand and approximately one per cent of energy demand.

The south west and the north west were identified as two areas with the most potential to produce more than one-third of this figure, owing to their large areas of poor-grade land.

According to Taylor, the Southampton University researchers are now working to determine how future climate scenarios will influence biomass supply.

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Honestly, all this labour needed should go into more useful endavours. Like insulating all buildings against heat loss (can save up to 80% of energy needs in houses).
Rebuilding city centres around train stations to avoid transportation to suburbs.
Replanting trees to reduce wind damage (tornados do not develop in forest areas).
Covering roofs with solar heating and PV elements.
All this also creates lots of jobs.

There are huge areas of land available for exploitation is this way: all the margins of motorways and railways for a start, where the transport system is already in place. And the tonnage of matter that is cut out of the nations hedges every year must surely be able to contribute. My garden certainly could.

The only problem is going to be the environmental lobby! Try to harvest a stick anywhere between March and August and they will be down on you like a crowd of angry things.

Lets start from a different place turn the switch off in every sense of the word, what do we “need” and I do mean need.

Without any great calculations or studies I bet we could learn to do without 70% of the energy we now and then turn out attention to using less by all the simple engineering solutions, super insulation and solar hot water heaters.

Mind you just think of the loss of revenue to the exchequer, ah I hit on the problem, the government don’t want you to use less energy, the loss of VAT and tax would be devastating.

I remain unconvinced that nuclear power is the only way, it is if you want to keep consumption high to support revenue collection.

Energy crops are woefully inefficient in their use of land. Even in the UK, a large scale solar PV installation will produce up to 50 times more electrical energy per unit area than growing rapeseed oil for burning in a 40% efficient diesel engine. Using woody biomass instead of rapeseed oil might improve the ratio to maybe 10:1. But burning biomass adds to atmospheric carbon in the short term, and there are fossil fuel inputs in fertilisers, tractoring, trucking and processing. Not to mention air quality impacts in the vicinity of the combustion plants.

@Tony and Ralf – agree entirely regarding efficiency and moderating energy use. The real reason for this fascination with biomass is the Govt has to meet its 2020 target for renewable energy. It wants to get half the 15% target from burning stuff. Yet we are quotes, the windiest country in the world.

With UK population growing rapidly, what we don’t need is more land given over to inefficient energy production , when we should be attending to food security and reducing dependence on imports by producing more food at home. And even for export to those who are suffering hunger abroad.

Arguing that renewable crops will not affect the environment ignores the most valuable attribute of that environment, which is its contribution to understanding our planet’s biology. To obtain this knowledge the “environment” must be maintained in an undisturbed state.

A better use for this land is to let it revert to its wild condition, and have nuclear reactors provide the energy. It would take about 2,500 square miles of switchgrass (a short rotation crop) grown here in Maryland (USA) to provide the electricity that a large reactor would provide each year. The reactor would occupy about 0.5 square miles. The land disturbed by uranium mining and to store spent fuel until it can be reprocessed will add little to this area.

The marine environment is very harsh; it can be violent, and any object placed in it will accumulate a layer of colonizing organisms.

What sort of down-time will be required to keep the tidal devices clean and working without loss of capacity? What are the largest storms that they can survive? We hear little of this from advocates of water power.

Four percent of electricity from just farming the land we don’t already use, this sounds like a very good idea.

It supports jobs in rural areas and adds to energy security. And if we can make road fuel from wood as well then why aren’t we already doing this. This sounds like a win win scenario to me! But what do I know I’ve only been a chartered engineer for 30 years 🙂